One benefit of electronic devices (e.g., personal computers and portable telephones) is their ability to perform many various tasks. For example, certain electronic devices may perform multiple functions, such as play music, display video, store pictures, receive and transmit telephone calls, and the like. Another benefit of electronic devices, particularly portable electronic devices, is the ability of a user to take such devices wherever he or she goes. For example, a portable electronic device may accompany a user while he or she is traveling in an automobile, airplane, train, or any other type of vehicle. Sometimes, the portable electronic device may even be physically attached or strapped to the user so that the device may be accessible at all times. In other circumstances, the portable electronic device may be carried by the user, for example, in a pocket, article of clothing, purse, or bag. Because of the ease of portability of such electronic devices, a portable electronic device may accompany its user in almost every facet of life.
In some instances, however, certain functions or settings of an electronic device may not be appropriate or authorized depending on the situation or environment in which the user may find himself or herself. For example, the user may be inside a movie theater where the use of an electronic device may be discouraged or inappropriate. As another example, the user may be operating a motorized vehicle, at which time the use of an electronic device may be unsafe or even illegal. As yet another example, a user may be attending a live concert where using the electronic device for recording purposes is strictly prohibited.
Moreover, in some instances, certain assets of an electronic device may not be appropriate or authorized depending on the situation or environment in which the user may find himself or herself. For example, the user may be in China and the contact information stored on the device for the user's friends residing in the United States may not be as useful to the user as may be the contact information for the user's friends in China. As still yet another example, certain assets or functionalities may be useful and added to or enabled on the device upon detecting a new life event, such as emergency contact information for a particular city upon the device entering that city.
Due to the unlimited number of different situations a user may encounter in his or her lifetime, existing electronic devices are unable to automatically adapt to all of them. In addition, existing electronic devices are inadequate for automatically enabling or disabling certain functions of the electronic device and/or for automatically altering the priority or availability of certain assets available to the device based on, for example, the location or environmental conditions of the device (or of the user associated with the device). Accordingly, what is needed are systems and methods for supporting various event-based modes of operation on an electronic device in response to detecting various life events.